There are different methods we can use to capture an APK file. We will present in this book three of them, available at the time of writing (last quarter, 2015). Please note that the information provided in this chapter is only for educational purposes. There are some rules and legislation that need to be observed when performing reverse engineering, which will be discussed later.
If our device is rooted or we are using an emulator with Google Play Services installed, it is possible to pull an APK that has been installed. Please note that a rooted device can be targeted by malicious applications and attackers. If you are going to root your device there is a lot of free information available on the Internet.
When the application has been installed from the Play Store or an alternative market, you will first need to connect the adb to your computer. First you need to determine the package name of the target application:
adb shell pm list packages...
